At last, Microsoft has realized that it just can’t bear the burden of Encarta, the digital encyclopedia it launched more than a decade back (1993). Although it enjoyed significant success early on, Encarta has continued to fall back. The reason being the information it has is not up to date and more importantly the Wikipedia provides a much more diverse and in depth knowledge of almost everything there is to know of. The Encarta website will be taken off on October 31 worldwide, except for Japan where the date has been extended to December 31, 2009. Microsoft will also cease to sell Encarta products by June. So what about all the data? I think it has a quite a lot to offer to Wikipedia as a sign of generosity, one way of keeping the name going.
